


The truth is just a rule that you can bend

by thought



Series: Help I'm Alive [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate Universe
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, M/M, Sentient Atlantis, Team as Family, human disasters throwing stones from glass houses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 09:29:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18140435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: "Your location has a disproportionate effect on your observable psychological state," Rush says.Sheppard snorts. "Don't I fucking know it."





	The truth is just a rule that you can bend

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently I am not free.  
> We've probably migrated from hand-wavey canon timelines into actual alternate universe by this point.  
> Takes place in the same universe as [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17993858)

"Oh… good," Rodney McKay says, without actually turning away from his computer. "You found me. And you brought your mathematician."

"Aww," Sheppard says, "don't be like that. You know I'm your favourite LIGHTSWITCH."

"Don't sell yourself short, Colonel, I upgraded you to a power bar after you flew the city. It's an inaccurate metaphor, but I figured you'd appreciate it."

"This is going to some cannibalistic places I'm not entirely comfortable with."

"I meant a power strip, you idiot. You know, you plug it in and then you can plug in a variety of other things to it? The only difference is you don't come with an on-off switch, but I believe in the power of science to one day make my dreams come true."

"You're too kind."

Rush has never actually witnessed the apparently famed Sheppard/McKay Show, and he's already at least 40% less enthused about this trip to Atlantis with his new-found experience.

"Anyway," Sheppard says, "I wanted to introduce you two."

McKay finally turns around to better glare at Rush. "Yes, yes, hello. I've heard all about you. Against my will, mind you. I've read your work, and its... acceptable, I suppose."

Rush stares. "I'm sure," he says.

"Well?" McKay asks after a moment of silence. "This is the part where you try to act disdainful of my work even though the chances that you can fully comprehend it, given your unimaginative limitation to one discipline, are practically non-existent."

"I haven't read it," Rush says. This isn't entirely true -- he's read some of McKay's classified documentation on the comparative function of Pegasus and Milky Way gates, but it hadn't been particularly memorable. He knows from Sheppard that McKay is brilliant, but Rush has met plenty of people who could be classed as such and is rarely all that impressed with any of them.

McKay huffs. "Well. Fine then. But I'm warning you now, there's only room in this city for one moody genius with a charming and harmless lack of common sense."

"Well, this has certainly been enlightening," says Rush, meaning the exact opposite.

"You should be honoured to be in my presence," McKay informs him, haughtily. Rush has no fucking idea how the Atlantis mission managed to survive if all of its members are as dedicated as Sheppard and McKay to the performance of their chosen archetype.

"He's not really like that," Sheppard tells him as soon as they've left the lab.

"I'm shocked," Rush says, dryly. "It certainly goes a way to explaining your habit of playing the uneducated grunt. You enable each other."

Sheppard shrugs. "Spend some time on a gate team, then we'll talk."

Rush snorts. "No thank you." The trip to Atlantis had been his first and second times through the gate, a fact of which he has no interest in informing Sheppard, and he's still a little spatial-temporally disoriented.

"Yeah, I can’t really see you making nice with the natives. First contact requires a level of tact and diplomacy that..."

"That at least half of your team is utterly lacking," Rush points out. "And I'm withholding judgement on your abilities, but I have my doubts."

"See if I ever let you read my AARs again," Sheppard mutters.

"Asking me to edit one report because you were too high on alien psychotropics to do so and didn't want to alert anyone does not indicate a pattern."

"Have *you* ever been in SGC quarantine?" Sheppard retorts. "I had good reason."

"Secession-related paranoia only works as an excuse when the whole fucking production isn't an open secret."

"What?" says Sheppard.

Rush actually stops walking to stare at him. "You're attempting to be funny, I presume."

"No, really--"

Rush reaches over and gently places his finger over Sheppard's lips. "You're attempting to be funny," he explains, darkly.

"Right," says Sheppard, and then licks his hand, so Rush ducks into the nearest transporter and decides he's going to explore the city on his own.

*

Sheppard is different on Atlantis. Rush feels like he's been missing an entire section of the equation without even realizing it. He moves more easily, actually smiles like he means it, practically radiates confidence. Watching him fly a gate ship (Rush fucking refuses to call it a puddle jumper) is... Well. It's like watching Gloria play the violin. It's the combination of spectacular technical skill and consuming passion, unwavering focus on the performance driven by love for the act rather than any uncertainty of competence.

He had, in a vulnerable, under-caffeinated over-stimulated state, agreed to Sheppard's request not to call out his 'dumb jock' routine (as described by David) while on Atlantis. He withdraws his concession by the end of the first day.

"You realize none of them buy it, correct?" he says, from where he's taken over the desk in Sheppard's quarters to poke absently at what he's quite sure is the Ancient equivalent of a graphing calculator.

Sheppard's head emerges from the towel he's been using to beat the water out of his hair. "What?"

Rush is tired. Existentially, if not in the common vernacular. "Never mind."

Of course Sheppard knows there isn't a person on Atlantis who thinks him the idiot he makes himself out to be. Rush is the stranger here, the outlier. He is experiencing Sheppard in his natural habitat and it's fucking with his head. Sheppard on Earth is a different creature entirely. Atlantis dulls his sharp edges, disarms his smirks and eases his shoulders. Rush knows how to fit all of their pointy bits together, but here with Sheppard smoothed into grace there is a significant chance that Rush will only wound him if he tries to get close. Alternatively, he'll bounce right off, nowhere to fit himself against that confident comfortable shell.

"You ok?" Sheppard asks, leaning over to pull on a pair of boxers.

"I'm fine," Rush says.

"Ok," Sheppard says.

In his head, a voice that sounds like some horrifying combination of Mandy and David says, flatly, 'Good talk.'

*

"I'm gonna talk to her first," Sheppard says. "Explain what we're going to do. It isn't that I'm doubting your capabilities, but--"

"But actual medical doctor Carson Beckett, under significant supervision, still managed to almost blow a helicopter out of the sky when we asked him to make a pretty picture of the galaxy," McKay cuts in, hooking his laptop up to one of the consuls along the edge of the Chair Room -- "They forbid you naming things, didn't they?" Rush had said, amused -- and comparing readings against a tablet he's got braced in the crook of his elbow. "And you're primarily a theorist who doesn't care about application. Plus, you're dating Sheppard and I'm starting to believe you just don't eat, ever, both of which speak to a terrifying lack of common sense."

"Hey," Sheppard says. "I'll have you know I am an excellent indicator of common sense." He doesn't even wrinkle is forehead when McKay announces their relationship to all in sundry (the room is empty but the door is open) and Rush doesn't know what to make of the quiet sense of pleasure this induces.

"There's absolutely no way you thought you were being discreet," he says. McKay frowns up at them. Sheppard shrugs languidly.

"Maybe I know something you don’t know about upcoming changes in military regs."

"Quite fucking likely, given the frankly innumerable areas of interest more relevant to me than your country's military, but also still not a good enough explanation. You wouldn't risk discovery unless you were already certain there wouldn’t be repercussions, and I'm well aware of the pace of bureaucracy."

"Nick thinks we're going to declare independence," Sheppard explains to an increasingly baffled McKay. Rush can't remember Sheppard ever using his first name outside of bed or that time they never speak of when a likely-ill-fated nurse at the SGC had thought they looked like trustworthy child-minders during an emergency.

"Haha," says McKay, weakly, "What a ridiculous idea."

"I love Earth and Earth things," Sheppard says, expressionlessly.

"Just sit in the goddamn chair," McKay grumbles.

"Have I now become implicated in treason as a result of my ability to extrapolate fucking blatant information from unavoidable observations? This is a political question, mind, not an indication that I'm somehow still questioning the validity of my situational understanding. I'm just not actually certain what counts as treason."

"Nah," Sheppard says. Rush wants to strangle him just on principle.

Sheppard drapes himself over the chair like he's posing for some sort of fashion magazine. "Ok, just give us a minute."

"Is the AI designed to mimic sentience simply to make the user interface more intuitive?" Rush asks McKay. "Or is Sheppard anthropomorphizing it? Given that he's named his car, I feel I need to ask these things."

McKay actually pauses to consider, if briefly. "It's not mimicking sentience. I know that much. But if it's legitimately a sentient AI (for whatever values of sentient you want to work with) or if Sheppard's just... stretching things, nobody's sure. He says it communicates in feelings and ideas, not actual language, so there is a lot of room for user bias."

"Could it be an interpretation issue? Sheppard experiences the AI as sentient because that's what he's expecting to experience?"

McKay turns away from his laptop so Rush can fully experience his disdainful eyeroll. "That's not how Ancient tech works. Honestly, the quality of the SGC's golden children gets lower every year. Where did you say you got your degree from?"

"I didn't," Rush says, absently. Sheppard's eyes have glazed over, and he's gone limp and boneless in the chair. "Are you still cognizant of outside stimulus, Sheppard?"

"Yup," Sheppard says.

"Not always," McKay says at the same time. "It depends how deep he goes."

McKay returns to his laptop, typing furiously. Rush isn't certain if he has a legitimate reason to be present -- a mandatory security protocol? Are there manual overrides available if the pilot or the AI go rogue? -- or if he simply doesn't trust Rush with the technology. Or Sheppard. If it's the latter, Rush is moving to a sheep farm in fucking Wails and never interacting with another human being. Gloria's friends hadn't particularly approved of Rush at the beginning, but they had all agreed they were well-suited for each other (not, he suspects, a compliment to either of them). Sheppard's friends, on the other hand, seem constantly startled by Rush's everything, including his bloody existence.

"Ok," Sheppard says after six silent minutes. "Come over here and take a seat. I've locked you out of any systems that you could do damage with."

"Yes yes," Rush says, hovering beside the chair until Sheppard has risen and stepped aside.

"It feels a bit weird at first," Sheppard says, like he hasn't drunkenly waxed rhapsodic about every facet of the experience on multiple occasions. Between that and Rush's research, he's fairly certain he knows what to expect.

He's wrong.

He had tried to hypothesize what having another presence in his head might feel like, but the utter lack of comparable data had made it a futile exercise. He had also had his doubts about the AI's level of self-awareness and ability to engage with the user.

"Hello, Dr. Nicholas Rush," Atlantis says. "I have anticipated our connection."

"Aye fucking right," Rush says.

"You ok?" Sheppard asks.

"You are often present in John's mind," Atlantis says. Even knowing it's in his head, Rush looks around for some sort of visual focus to go with the voice. Which isn't actually a voice, he's quite certain, but his brain has made the executive decision that he's going to be experiencing it as verbal input until such time as he has the mental fortitude to deconstruct the concept of thoughts not his own being placed into his head.

"The feeling's mutual," he tells the city. Sheppard is watching him warily, so probably he should fucking prioritize figuring out how to communicate non-verbally.

'Can you understand me?' he thinks, as clearly as he can.

"Yes," Atlantis says. "If conceptual intent is present, then clarity in language is redundant."

Rush wonders, with a mix of irritation and slight hysteria, if that was a joke.

"No," Atlantis says. "Communication protocol calibration is at 67%."

"Sheppard," Rush says. "Your city is mocking me with introductory philosophy."

"Connection was derived from current Terran programming fundamentals," Atlantis says, because far fucking be it for Rush to inaccurately represent her sense of humour in front of her favourite human.

"Can you feel her?" Sheppard asks.

"No, I've just gone insane and started reacting to auditory hallucinations," Rush says, which is only funny outside of his head.

"It might take her a while to fully connect," Sheppard says. "It usually takes a bit of time to get accustomed to each other."

"I'm quite certain she's in the process of developing a personalized colloquial fucking lexicon for the purposes of gossiping about you, so no, I dinnae think we're having that problem."

"She's what?"

"You heard me," Rush says, and then he closes his eyes because he can feel the AI tugging at the edges of his consciousness and he's struggling with the distinct contrast between visual and mental sensory data.

"I can alter communications modes if that would increase your comfort levels," Atlantis offers.

Rush is perfectly fucking comfortable and does not appreciate being condescended to. He would like to see which systems he has access to and the associated mechanisms of control.

Immediately he is imagining grids, wave forms and scrolling text, Ancient more complex and multidisciplinary than he's yet to learn but somehow still completely understandable. Lights. Communication. Water filtration. He wants to see more, and there is a brief moment of what feels almost like hesitation before the landscape in his head expands further, layering matrices over top of each other and networking his intuitive connections behind the scenes. Weapons. Power. Shields. Life support.

"I thought you locked off anything I could do damage with?" he says absently.

"I did," Sheppard says.

"You will not do unintentional harm," Atlantis says. "I have examined your neural architecture and John knows you well." She uses "know" because English doesn't have the proper word, but Rush gets the idea anyway and he wonders what, exactly, Sheppard and Atlantis think they understand about him.

"Hmm," Rush says.

"What's going on?" Sheppard asks.

"At least three power drains in the unused laboratories, for one," Rush says. "And I can probably unlock the rest of the database given sufficient time."

Sheppard touches his shoulder. "You can tell all of that," he says, quietly.

"I communicate differently with John Sheppard," she says. "You are far more efficient."

'And yet you still like him better,' Rush thinks.

"He is mine and I am his and we protect all of those within our walls," she says, like reciting a sacred text. "And he understands what it means to fly."

"Did you know your city's in love with you?" Rush asks, bemused.

Sheppard squeezes his shoulder. "Come on, point out where those power drains are and then say goodbye to the nice AI. It's your first time in the chair, I don't think we should push it."

Rush sends the information to McKay's laptop. He doesn't want to open his eyes. Sheppard sounds like he's having an emotion, and Rush would far rather stay immersed in the purely informational environment of the interface than go attempt to deal with that.

"You love him, as well," Atlantis says.

"Goodbye," Rush says, and stands up so fast he almost falls right back down.

*

Sheppard goes running every morning, which is a disgusting habit he's luckily never brought back to Earth with him.

"You wanna come?" Dex asks, and it's a joke, it's so obviously and unapologetically posed to be ridiculous that Rush has said 'yes' before he can stop himself.

"You sure?" Sheppard asks. "We go pretty far."

Rush walks away instead of answering, because he's not had any sort of real row with Sheppard in all the months they've known each other and it would be far too cliché to change that his third day on Atlantis.

He runs with Sheppard and Dex and he has no idea what people mean when they talk about the runner's high, it's just an immeasurable segment of time wherein he regrets every single cigarette he's ever smoked and has pseudo flashbacks to objectively traumatic moments of his childhood between the ages of 11-17. He continues to go over the same piece of code he's been trying to debug all night, but the alteration of his physical circumstances doesn't have any noticeable effect on his ability to fucking work it out.

"I'm impressed," Dex says, when he leaves them both back at Sheppard’s quarters, looking barely ruffled in comparison to Rush and Sheppard’s panting and sweating.

"I'm not," Rush says, darkly, and goes to shower.

Sheppard joins him a few minutes later, ducking in under the water and frowning when Atlantis doesn't heat it to practically scalding for him.

"Most of the scientists in the program don't have much interest in the more physical side of things," Sheppard says, offering the shampoo bottle to Rush in a pointed demand for Rush to wash his hair.

"A state of affairs I'm sure has nothing to do with the over-all attitude of the military toward them."

Rush doesn't want to have this conversation, but Sheppard has that look that says 'I'm committed to the idea of martyring myself on this sword and there's nothing you can do to stop me'.

"I'm not saying there aren't reasons," Sheppard says. "And obviously anyone on a gate team has to pass certain physical requirements."

"I don't care," Rush says, working the soap into Sheppard's hair brusquely. "It wasn't the issue of physical fitness-- I have no desire to do anything like that again in the pursuit of pleasure, please let me be very clear on that point. It's the larger implications of the assumptions being made."

"You're not a liability," Sheppard says. Rush snorts.

"Obviously not. I'm also entirely capable of managing my own survival independently."

"Oh," says Sheppard. "Yeah. Fuck. That wasn't--"

"I’m aware there's a particular subset of academics with a minimal grasp of real-world practicalities and a distinct inability to remain functional in crisis situations. I'm not denying their presence. I simply find it spectacularly vexing to be incorrectly categorized, particularly by military types, a specification made apparent only after my recruitment to the SGC."

"Yeah," Sheppard says again. Rush guides him back under the water, a hand coming up automatically to cover his eyes against the soap. Sheppard tips his head back, and Rush doesn't want to feel reassurance in the unquestioning trust of the gesture, but he does. "I guess I'm just used to the scripts Rodney and I play out. Having you here is... jarring."

"I am not," Rush says, vehemently, "Rodney McKay."

He snatches the conditioner off the shelf and presses Sheppard's shoulders down until he folds easily to his knees so Rush can reach his hair without feeling ridiculous.

"Yeah," Sheppard drawls. "I did notice that."

Rush tugs hard at his hair in retribution and instead of the resistance he expects Sheppard lets his whole body sway with the force, leaning against Rush's legs and tipping his head into his hand like it's natural.

"Your location has a disproportionate effect on your observable psychological state," Rush says.

Sheppard snorts. "Don't I fucking know it."

"Yes," says Rush, struck with a sudden burst of fondness, a sensation to which he is still becoming reaccustomed. "I suppose you do, at that."

*

Ten months earlier, John Sheppard had come back from Earth and sat down in the mess hall at his usual table and proceeded to stare blankly into his stew for fifteen minutes before Rodney had said,

"Ok, what the hell is wrong with you? Since you obviously want somebody to ask so badly."

"I think I made a friend," Sheppard had said, knowing he'd sounded like fucking Oliver Twist or Little Orphan Annie or, more flatteringly, one of those robots from science fiction always so desperate to emulate and understand humanity.

"God help us all," Rodney had said.

"That's wonderful, John," Teyla had added, in a voice that made it clear she had significant doubts about the accuracy of his observations but hadn't wanted to insult his emotional intelligence to his face.

"He's a math geek," Sheppard had said, "and he yelled at me a lot and also spilled coffee on me the second time we met. The first time he managed to save it. But he's funny in that way where most people don't get it, and almost as much of an unspoken social pariah as I am back there."

"Pfft," Rodney had said. "What are you talking about? Everyone loves you."

"Everyone is scared of me," John had corrected him. "Or they think somebody needs to knock me down a few pegs. But the program mythos says I'm a cool guy, and we all know how much the SGC runs on legends and herd mentality. This guy's the same, I guess, he's working on a secret project and he's smart as hell, but he's also got the social graces of a can opener and his only friends are a Colonel known to be goal-oriented to the point of being fucking crazy, and a physicist with no other friends because everyone's too busy being inspired by her "bravery in overcoming her disability" to notice that she's an actual person." He'd set down his fork to make the appropriate finger quotes, and pushed his plate away a moment later so he could plunk his elbows down on the table and drop his face into his hands.

"I can see how this would be hard for you," Teyla had said.

"Can you," Ronon had said, flatly.

"No," she had admitted, "but I've been trying to demonstrate empathy to you all in the hopes that you may learn how to better connect with the people around you."

"Are you sleeping with him?" Ronon had asked.

Sheppard had made a horrible sort of groaning noise, just quiet enough as to not draw attention, and slowly started sliding down in his seat.

"That means yes," Rodney had translated, bored. "Sheppard, what's his name? If I haven't heard of him you're not allowed to get attached. Just because you don't have standards it doesn’t mean we don't have standards for you."

Sheppard had said "I am never telling you his name,"

and Teyla had said "I think we would all be delighted to meet him, John,"

and Rodney had said "I'll figure it out, I have connections,"

and Ronon had said "Does he make you do math in bed?" and Sheppard had disappeared beneath the table, which definitely meant 'yes'.

**Author's Note:**

> Please come join me in Rush/Sheppard hell.


End file.
